reboxetine

Have seen a few threads about the dual reuptake inhibitors and thought i would let you guys know how i have been doing on reboxetine (just a noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor). Have been on it for 3-4 weeks, and only take it once a day as i didnt want it to interfere with my sleep and then adjust it from there. I started on 1/2 tab (2mg) in the morn and the first few days had good increases in energy, side effects were increased sweating, the sweating has subsided and have good energy (not over stimulated) and concentration, no weight gain or increase in apettite. Have also found it helps a little with nerve type pain like pins and needles, hot/cold prickly feeling that i sometimes get in my back muscles. Overall it has been good and havent found the need to increase the dose and besides the first few days, it doesnt effect my sleep. I am sensitive to AD's ssri's and can only tolerate low doses like 1/4 tab zoloft and found it didnt really help anyway.

Hope this helps someone out there, worth a try. Has been good for me in combo with antivirals and lyrica/zopiclone combo for sleep.

I've never heard about it but it does sound interesting. I found this...

Reboxetine may also be used off-label to treat low back pain and fibromyalgia. It was in this article:

"....Reboxetine (Edronax) is a relatively well-tolerated, relatively selective "noradrenergic" agent. Crudely, whereas serotonin plays a vital role in anxiety and mood, noradrenaline is essential to maintaining drive, self-assertiveness and the capacity for reward. There's a fair bit of evidence that chronically depressive people have dysfunctional and atypical noradrenergic systems - particularly their alpha 2- and beta-adrenoceptors. Reboxetine itself typically doesn't have the disruptive effects on cognitive function or psychomotor performance common to older, tricyclic clinical mood-brighteners - though alas antimuscarinic effects are still not completely absent. Indeed for one sub-population of depressives, the new NorAdrenaline Reuptake Inhibitors (NARIs) are possibly under-used. Unfortunately, catecholaminergic strategies to combat depression were eclipsed in the late 1980s and 1990s by the marketing hype surrounding selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Reciprocal interactions between the different monoamine systems make it hard to target one neurotransmitter system without triggering a cascade of effects on the others. But NARIs - and "dopaminergics" like amineptine (Survector) - may be especially useful in drive-deficient "anergic" states where the capacity for sustained motivation is lacking; in the treatment of "retarded" depression; and for melancholic depressives with a poor ability to cope with stress. Anxious depressives, on the other hand, may do better on Servier's neuroprotective and anxiolytic antidepressant tianeptine (Stablon), though comparative clinical trials are lacking.

Reboxetine may be safely combined with an SSRI, though there is evidence that NARIs themselves indirectly enhance central serotonin function by a mechanism that doesn't depend on reuptake inhibition. More surprisingly perhaps, preliminary studies suggest reboxetine can actually reverse tranylcypromine-induced hypertensive crises. The "cheese effect" is usually triggered by ingesting tyramine-rich foods. Thus NARIs plus MAOIs may prove a potent form of combination-therapy if other options fail. Newly-licensed (2006) EMSAM, the transdermal selegiline patch, is probably the safest choice of MAOI.

Reboxetine may also be used off-label to treat low back pain and fibromyalgia.

By early 2007, reboxetine was licensed worldwide in over 60 countries. In May 2001, however, the FDA declined Pharmacia's license application for the North American market. The grounds for the decision have not been officially disclosed... "

My partner and I were in a clinical trial for reboxetine here in the US from Sept. 08 until March of this year, when Pfizer pulled the plug on the trial. The results had been wonderful, and the trial doctor said that she'd even seen FMS patients who were on disability be able to return to working full-time. My partner and I both had good results from it -- increased energy, and definitely a decreased need for pain medication. I was really looking forward to the open-label part of the trial, so I could adjust my dosage, but that's when Pfizer not only pulled the plug, but declined to offer the med on a compassionate use basis to those of us in the study. They first tried to claim that they canceled the study because the drug wasn't effective, which was a bunch of bull. Then they said that it was purely a financial decision -- after their merger with Wyeth, the accounting department chose to cancel a number of trials for drugs which weren't perceived to offer a big enough financial benefit. In other words, reboxetine helped FMS patients, but big pharma didn't think it would make them enough profit. They actually had the nerve to tell patients in the trial to take Lyrica instead, as if the two meds were at all comparable.

Reboxetine is essentially a reformulated version of Strattera, the ADHD med. Eli Lilly (who own the Strattera patent), are considering starting trials using low-dose Strattera to treat FMS pain and brain fog. The problem is that the current doses of Strattera which are used to treat ADHD are too high to be used for an FMS study, so they'd need to manufacture a low-dose pill. Also, the Strattera patent specifically says it can *only* be used to treat ADHD, so the patent would need to be rewritten. Still, something may eventually come of this. In the interim, if you're in the US and want to try reboxetine/Edronax, you can get it from CanadaDrugs.com with a prescription from your doctor. The side-effects include anxiety (and the bizarre sweating that was mentioned above), so if you suffer from anxiety it's probably not the drug for you. I was really happy to have been in the trial for it, though, and was extremely disappointed when the study was canceled. I'd been promised over a year of reboxetine for free once the study was over, and without health insurance, could have really benefited from that.

Oh, I thought of one more benefit of reboxetine -- no discontinuation syndrome, and it pretty much starts to work the day you take it. It was nice to be on a drug that I could start and stop without any planning or tapering.[This Message was Edited on 05/27/2009]